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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27767119">Same Old</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegoats/pseuds/Treegoats'>Treegoats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Hurt/Comfort (in a way), Mentions of assorted horrors brought to you by the memory of Ramsay Bolton who is his own warning, POV Arya Stark, POV Theon Greyjoy, Past Rape/Non-con, Show!Verse, Starvation/Food Distress, Theon Greyjoy Lives, Theon Greyjoy-centric, Theon not having a very good time, Violence, aftermath of abuse, mentions of hanging, threats of murder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:48:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27767119</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Treegoats/pseuds/Treegoats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon comes back to Winterfell to find redemption and maybe die.</p><p>Arya doesn't buy it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Past Ramsay Bolton/Theon Greyjoy - Relationship, Theon Greyjoy &amp; Arya Stark, Theon Greyjoy &amp; Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Theon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It’s show!verse season 8. This is not rewriting the plot of S8 into something that makes sense, this is self-indulgently making characters I liked interact with each other! You’re welcome :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theon stands on the ramparts and watches the sun rise over the snow-covered hills. Winterfell is stirring awake, at his back. Men shout, the first clangs of metal reverberate.</p><p>He hasn't slept, but he doesn't mind. That's how things are, now: His bones hurt, he doesn't sleep. He won't complain. Just to be back here, at Winterfell -- alive, dressed in clean ironborn garb, fully out of his own free will -- is much more than he had reason to hope for.</p><p>"You don't <em>have</em> to go back there, brother, not really, do you know that?" Yara told him, shortly before he left. She'd already given her approval for his leave. She wasn't speaking as his Queen, but as his sister: <em>Why would you want to do this to yourself?  </em>He didn’t have an answer for her, then, and wouldn’t have any now. Only a vague, incoherent knowledge that this is where he must go.</p><p>Stupidity it might have been to come back to this place of imprisonment and madness and memory. He won't dwell on it. He wants to be useful and work is waiting.</p><p> </p><p>Arya Stark appears at his front, sudden like a shadow. Theon jumps. He can't help it, he startles easy, ever since. Arya looks at him with contempt.</p><p>She is back from beyond the seas, he learned. She came home to find her family and to find revenge, so it's said. She hasn't approached Theon, so far. He's seen her from a distance, at her siblings' side, sharp and lean and deadly. Sansa told him a little bit, of what she is, now. The years have transformed them all.</p><p>She is dressed in black leather, hair pulled back like her father's used to be, her small body held balanced like a blade.</p><p>Arya draws her sword, quicker than the eye can blink. The pointy end presses against Theon's neck, metal sharp against his skin.</p><p>Silence fills his head. He wouldn't mind, he thinks, but it's too early.</p><p>"Not today," he begs.</p><p>Her expression is unreadable -- and what a contrast that is to the open book her face once used to be -- but after a moment she removes the sword from his throat.</p><p>"Not today," she agrees.</p><p>It's a postponing, not a revocation.</p><p>"My siblings are forgiving," she tells him. "I am not. I have killed men for lesser crimes. Do you understand what I am telling you?"</p><p>He understands fully. "Yes," he says.</p><p>Arya studies him, gauges his comprehension. Then, with a hint of a nod and the swiftness of a cat, she is gone.</p><p>Theon calms his trembling hands and follows to climb down the stairs.</p><p>--</p><p>They are sitting in the hall, eating food. It's the very same hall where Bolton used to dine, the very same stony floors, the very same tables, but Jon and Sansa wrenched this space back from the Bolton claws, stamped it theirs again. As evidenced by the Stark banners on the wall, and Stark songs in the air, and Stark bannermen crowding the place, and the fact that Reek gets to eat food served to him as opposed to serving food while starving.</p><p>Ramsay liked that, having Reek entertain his guests. The hall packed with Northerners, all loyal or feigning loyalty to the Boltons, none of them sympathetic to what once was Theon Greyjoy, their eyes trailing Reek's laboured limp and pained little noises when Ramsay did what Ramsay did. As for the entertainment Reek was meant to provide... Theon bites down hard on his spoon, releases a shoot of pain up his jaw. <em>Don't think of that,</em> he tells himself. <em>Pay attention</em>.</p><p>"So how come <em>he</em> isn't on your little list?" Tyrion Lannister is asking Arya Stark, pointing at Theon.</p><p>Arya's little list has caused some fascination, this evening.</p><p>Sandor Clegane's laugh barks through the room. "Who says he isn't?" Clegane has been on <em>and </em>off the list, as he's been bragging about.</p><p>Arya just smirks, silent, and doesn't reveal her secrets.</p><p>Theon <em>is</em> on her little list, Theon knows, but she won't kill him just yet. After the battle with the Night King, she will, probably, if they both survived. It's unlikely that they will. But it's unlikely that Reek would sit idle and well-fed right in Winterfell's belly. Who's to say what kind of wonders might happen?</p><p>"You're unbothered by this?" Tyrion Lannister asks him. It takes Theon a few moments to understand he's being talked to. It's the first time he is addressed this evening. Theon swallows his soup and it's warm and delicious. "Yes," he agrees, and he finds it to be true.</p><p>--</p><p>Once, after starving Reek for many days, Ramsay dangled a piece of meat in front of him, from his outstretched fingers. A test, certainly, and Reek waited, obedient, fearful, eyes glued to Ramsay's hand. <em>Come on</em>, Ramsay invited, <em>don't you want it? </em>Eyes twinkling. <em>Come and get it, pet. </em>Yes, yes, <em>yes</em>, he wanted it, he wanted it desperately, and he crawled forward at Ramsay's invitation, hand clutching at his concave belly, tongue on his cracked lips. But just as he opened his mouth to bite, Ramsay removed the meat from out of his grasp and stuffed it into his own mouth. <em>Oops</em>, said Ramsay and laughed and laughed and laughed.</p><p>Ramsay's laughter clings to the dark walls like a curse. It echoes from the stone. It follows Theon wherever he goes, makes him stumble, makes him scared of every shadow.</p><p><em>But I'm alive, and he's dead</em>, he reminds himself.</p><p>It was such madness to come back here, it really was, but he had to. He <em>had</em> to. And now he's here and what else can he do but be?</p><p> </p><p>Theon has been keeping to himself and to his ironborn, mostly, since his arrival in Winterfell. The North did not forget Theon Turncloak. They keep reminding him of their contempt. They remind him with their glances, with their words, with their angry silences, with their spit, on occasion. He has no complaints. Why shouldn't they hold him in contempt. After what he did, after what he was made to be. Theon is used to contempt.</p><p>It doesn't matter. He's not here to be liked.</p><p>Theon is making his way through the yard, careful on the snow.</p><p>A round-faced young man stumbles into his back, elbow to Theon's lower ribs. Theon freezes at the sudden impact, briefly unhinged, before he regains his composure.</p><p>"My apologies!" the young man is saying. Then: "Are you... all right?"</p><p>Theon looks up and nods and the young man's eyes widen in recognition.</p><p>"You're Theon Greyjoy," he says, with wonder.</p><p>It's a dark-haired young man dressed in leather, built solid.</p><p>"I'm Podrick Payne," he adds, when Theon doesn't immediately react. "We met, at, uh... " Podrick's voice trails off, unsure.</p><p>Theon nods. The hunt, the run, Brienne of Tarth and her squire rescuing them from certain death, or worse. He was so mad from fear that memory is sliced and disjointed, but he remembers.</p><p>"Podrick Payne," he repeats. "I know your name."</p><p>Podrick is shuffling his feet on the floor, hesitant. "You look quite different, my Lord," he hazards, finally.</p><p>Theon laughs. "I would hope so," he says, and Podrick finally relaxes.</p><p>"I got better with the sword, I believe," Podrick smiles back, relieved. "But I will never forget you for saving me."</p><p>Theon draws a blank, for a second. "Wasn't it the other way round?" he says.</p><p>Podrick looks at him strangely. "When I laid defeated in the snow and you killed a man before he could kill me?" he prompts.</p><p>A vague recollection. Theon shrugs. "I was crazed from the terror," he admits.</p><p>"Well," says Podrick, mildly. "Thank you anyhow."</p><p>Reek the saviour-- saving captive wives and soft-eyed squires and even Theon's undeserving skin at inopportune moments. Theon swallows a mad little giggle. Isn't that just the jape.</p><p>No need to scare off this kind young man, though. Podrick Payne, he dutifully adds the name. "Thank <em>you</em>, Podrick Payne," he says, as friendly as he can. </p><p>Podrick Payne looks at him a bit strangely, still. But with the poise of a man who has lived through a lot of strangeness and always took it in stride, he bows his head and says: "I'll be happy to see you around," and he even makes it sound like he's not lying.</p><p>--</p><p>Theon crosses a corridor near the kitchens and his eye stumbles over the wooden beams up the ceiling. Ramsay hung him from here, once, tied a noose around Reek's neck so tight Reek had to stand straight on the balls of his feet to not choke himself. "I don't think you earned the right to sleep," Ramsay explained, "and this will keep you alert when I can't watch you." And so it went. Reek toiled in the yard or cried under Ramsay’s attentions by day and choked on the noose at night until everything splintered and shook and yet would never end. Yara once asked him what Ramsay did, beyond the obvious, that is. But how do you explain something like this?</p><p>Theon shakes his head. <em>He's dead, </em>he reminds himself for the millionth of time since he came back here. It doesn’t matter now. He's dead. He's <em>dead</em>.</p><p>But that’s not the whole truth, is it? The truth is Theon is the kind of creature that would crawl and grovel and lick its master's bloodied boots even after they kicked it half to death, he’s the cowardly dog that begged and sobbed and <em>loved</em> its master so, who betrayed <em>everything</em> -- his dignity, his people -- in the futile hope to spare whatever worthless skin he still had left, that let itself be used in every way imaginable, that let himself be <em>Reek</em>, and the Northeners and their hard contemptuous stares, they know, they know, they <em>know</em>....</p><p>"Theon."</p><p>It's Sansa. Theon finds himself clutching at the wall, shivering. <em>How long did he...? </em></p><p>"Come, let's walk outside," says Sansa, eyes soft.</p><p>He gratefully accepts.</p><p>"I wondered," she says, "how it would be like for you, to be back here."</p><p>Theon lets out a small giggle. Yeah.</p><p>"How is it like for you?" he asks.</p><p>Sansa balls her fists. "This is my <em>home</em>," she says, trying to make it true. "It has to be."</p><p>Theon nods. Neither press the issue. There's no time to be mad with memory, at any rate. The end of the world is coming, they have to prepare.</p><p>Men pass and look at Sansa in deference and respect. They nod at the Lady of Winterfell. They avoid looking at Theon. They won't spit at him, not when Sansa is standing beside him.</p><p>"They love you," Theon observes, pleased. </p><p>"I want them to," Sansa admits. "I want to be protected. I know no one can protect anyone, but I want them all to try."</p><p>Might that just be enough.</p><p>"Come, Theon, you will join me for breakfast," she decides, and so he will.</p><p>--</p><p>“You shouldn’t be here,” he told Sansa, long ago. What of him, then? Winterfell’s walls bleed memory and memory doesn’t agree with Theon.</p><p>Winterfell has been scrubbed clean, after the Starks retook it from their enemies. It has been scoured from horror. But there's a door with the wood still cracked were Ramsay bashed Reek's head into, and there's a fire poker Ramsay beat him unconscious with that no one thought to wipe the blood from, and the man serving the food fills his bowl as readily as any other but still sneers at him: <em>Turncloak,</em> and Theon finds himself wondering: Were you one of those that raped Reek when given the chance, or did you just stand and watch?</p><p>He tries to ignore his disquiet, he tries to squash it. There's no point in it. He is what he is, things are what they are, he deserved everything and more. If he's lucky, he'll die here soon, sword in hand and protecting what matters and isn't that much more than he had reason to hope for? Isn't that reason to be grateful?</p><p> </p><p>Theon spends his morning practicing his bow.</p><p>Ramsay promised him he'd never shoot again, but he was wrong. Ramsay was wrong about so many things, he must remember this, too. Theon <em>can</em> still be useful.</p><p>Theon walks to retrieve his arrows from the target. Just when he makes ready to pull, a knife whirs past his ear, between his hands and enters the mark, dead centre.</p><p>He turns to see Arya staring at him.</p><p>Theon forces calm into his limbs. His fingers tremble just barely. <em>Don't engage</em>, he tells himself. He carefully collects his weapons and leaves Arya's knife. <em>Ignore it</em>. He's been practising this skill a lot, since he entered Winterfell -- ignoring it.</p><p>Arya sidles to his side, when he makes to leave.</p><p>"Every time I see you get too comfortable around here, I will remind you, Theon Greyjoy," she informs him. "Justice will be served."</p><p>Irritation surges too quickly to temper. Does he look comfortable? <em>Let it go</em>, he tries to tell himself, but he hasn't slept in days and the very same men who hooted at Reek's misery keep acting all sanctimonious, as if they were justice incarnate. <em>I know what all of you are</em>, Theon thinks.</p><p>"What justice has <em>ever</em> been served here?" he snaps.</p><p>"Ha!" says Arya, with triumph.</p><p>"Not all meek and humbled after all. I knew you for what you are, Theon Greyjoy."</p><p>Theon grits his teeth. Is she playing?</p><p>"Then you should know I'd never betray your family again. I'm here to make amends."</p><p>"<em>Betray my family?" </em>Arya scoffs. "<em>Here to make amends?" </em>She laughs. <em>"</em>Where I come from this answer would have given me a good whopping with the stick."</p><p>Theon stares uncomprehending. Arya won't explain. She looks at him with a mix of amusement and contempt.</p><p>"How can I trust someone who doesn't want to know himself?" she accuses.</p><p>Unease crawls up Theon's spine.</p><p>"I am not here to cause harm," he repeats, uselessly.</p><p>"Of course you aren't," Arya says, half disdain half distrust.</p><p>"But if you were," she adds. "I'd kill you on the spot." </p><p>This promise, Theon can believe. He watches her as she leaves, dizzy and unsettled.</p><p><em>Where I come from</em>, she said. She wasn't talking about Winterfell, was she?</p><p>--</p><p>"Has Arya bothered you?" Sansa asks.</p><p>They are standing on the ramparts. Sansa has her favourite spots to be found in, he noticed, and this is one of them. Just here, close to where they jumped the wall to escape.</p><p>"Not at all," says Theon.</p><p>Sansa gives him a look, but doesn't comment further.</p><p>"She was so young, when they murdered father," she says. "We all were so young." She suddenly looks very sad. Sansa rarely allows herself to look sad, but there’s no need to pretend, with Theon.</p><p>Theon was young, too, when they killed his brothers, wasn't he? <em>How can I trust someone who doesn't want to know himself? </em>Arya charged. Theon's head hurts. No, he doesn't care for knowing himself. All he wants is to do something good for once in his life. Is that too simple a notion?</p><p>Sansa reaches out a hand for him and he takes it. He clings to it, grateful.</p><p>Maybe nothing makes sense and nothing ever will, but what Sansa did for him and what he did for her is a knowledge clear and solid to them both, at least.</p><p>--</p><p>Theon shoots his arrows and he endures the sneers and the memories and he nurtures his guilt and he trains with Podrick Payne a few times and once Brienne watches them and she never speaks to him but her gaze is devoid of contempt.</p><p>Bran is seen only rarely, but when he shows himself, Theon remembers the boy that cried at him to stop, <em>please,</em> please stop his violence. Arya is right to scoff at his promise to make amends. The burnt bodies hung from the gates, Ser Rodrik's head tumbling through the mud, all the blood spilled, none of it can be undone. Theon can't justify his still being alive, and how does one make amends for <em>that</em>?</p><p>Sansa still invites him to breakfast, when she finds him roaming in the early morning and he eats, then, belly warmed and filled.</p><p>--</p><p>They're in the final throes of preparation. Theon is busy readying the bows.</p><p>A blade suddenly presses against his neck, cool and deadly, and attached to it is Arya Stark. He didn't hear her approach, but one never does, with Arya.</p><p>Theon waits.</p><p>Arya stares at him, studying.</p><p>"You're not much afraid of this," she decides, finally.</p><p>Theon doesn't know what to answer. <em>You don't know</em>, he wants to say.</p><p>"I was told you were a coward now," Arya probes. </p><p>Theon can't help but laugh. "And what's your verdict?"</p><p>Arya removes the blade from his throat and tucks it away into the scabbard at her waist. She shrugs.</p><p>"Why are you not afraid?" she asks, and in that moment, she sounds nearly like way back then, ten years old and bluntly curious.</p><p>She's not play-testing, he decides. At least, not in that kind of way. She's searching for what's real. They are standing in Winterfell's yard, just a few feet away from the kennels, just a few feet away from countless sites of terror.</p><p>"There's worse things than dying," he says. </p><p>Arya scoffs. "How can you know?"</p><p>Theon hesitates. Sansa and Arya talk, he knows, so Theon assumes Arya must have heard. Sansa has told Jon enough of what happened at Winterfell, that much he's aware of. And then, there's all the talk. Reek was a public spectacle, after all. He has no want to restate the obvious.</p><p>"You know," he tells her.</p><p>Arya looks unimpressed. "You don't know Death," she corrects him.</p><p>Theon half wants to protest, but she quickly adds: "Don't flatter yourself, Turncloak. You know men's cruelty, which is not the same as knowing Death. Don't disrespect it."</p><p>Small Arya's eyes bore into his soul and she looks about a hundred years older than she once was. <em>Where has she been?</em> Theon wonders, yet again.</p><p>"I wouldn't underestimate Death, if I were you," Arya advices, lip half curled to reveal her teeth.</p><p>The white walkers are approaching. A few days left, so it has been calculated. All are readying themselves for glory or extinction. And here is Arya Stark, reminding him, who has been so close to death so very often and yet failed to die, to be scared of Death. He can't help but laugh.</p><p>"That's your idea of encouragement before battle?"</p><p>Arya doesn’t laugh back.</p><p>"<em>You</em> don't need encouragement," she decides.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will be Arya POV</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Arya</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The Faceless men training is like it's in the show (at least how I understood it). Still S8 show!verse with no pretence whatsoever at fixing the overarching plot. There's a few tiny borrowings from the books here and there. I had a couple scenes stuck in my mind that I wanted to get out, that’s all. I hope some of you will be able to enjoy it, though!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Arya knows combat, she knows violence, she knows pain, she listened to Jon attentively and believed every word, she knew what was coming. She thought herself prepared.</p><p>She wasn't. This disaster eludes preparation. The sheer mass of undead white horror, the wails, the cold, the chaos. It takes the whole of her training, all she ever learned about survival to not drown in helpless terror but to embrace necessity. As she was taught: slip through the doors of selfhood, lose your name and become -- all you need to be.</p><p>A girl does all a girl must do.</p><p>A girl feels no sorrow as she runs through oceans of fallen allies. She feels no fear as she sneaks closer and closer to the King of the Dead. A girl is quick and focused. Silent as a ghost, nimble as a fish, sharp like a wolf. She observes the moment.</p><p>Theon is the last man standing, before Bran -- fitting, oddly -- and her honed senses allow her to hear. "Wait," Bran's telling Theon. Then again: "Wait."</p><p>Theon makes to charge but doesn't yet, under Bran's command. He's distraction enough for a girl to slip onto the scene, for a servant of Death to meet the Dead King. Events orchestrate under Brans watchful hand, the seconds slide into place.</p><p>She slips through death’s grip, yet again, then buries her dagger into its breast. A girl survives as hero.</p><p>She lands on her feet.</p><p>Theon crumbles, exhausted and injured, but he'll live.</p><p>Bran nods, just barely.</p><p>The dead go back to death, where they belong. The Many-Faced God is well-served tonight. </p><p>When they collect their fallen and wounded, a girl sheds no tears.</p><p>--</p><p>She loses herself in Jon's arms -- warm, alive -- and Gendry's, and Sansa's, and Bran's, and even Sandor Clegane's. Alive, alive, alive, she keeps reminding herself. Warm and true and real. She touches and lets herself be touched. Her family, her home. As if warm touch could help her understand the truth of it.</p><p>They hail her a hero, drink to her name. Songs will be written.</p><p>She joins them in their cheer and bustle, but a sliver of ice remains lodged between her and the world, a narrow wall of glass separates Arya from herself. A girl wears Arya's face, and Arya is alive. So why does she feel so touched by death?</p><p> </p><p>Once, Arya stowed Needle under a rock, sheltered her away, buried deep. She was meant to let go of herself, to forsake need and desire, but instead she sequestered it away. As Arya got stripped to her core, blow after blow and bruise after bruise, the secret stash prevailed.</p><p>Sometimes Arya still feels the blood in her mouth, the crack of the cane, her violent anger slowly burning into nothing. <em>A girl must learn.</em> And learn she did. Every lie got stripped from Arya, and then every truth, and then--</p><p>    the doors of Death into nothingness</p><p>But Needle waited for her, like an indelible proof of being. "Boy, girl, you are a sword," Sylvio Forel told her, years ago. <em>I'm Arya</em>, she whispers into the night, hand on Needle's grip. <em>I'm alive</em>.</p><p>--</p><p>She trains swords with Brienne, and she's better than Brienne -- she's better than any of them -- but she still welcomes the exertion. Her muscles feel warm and lose, after.</p><p>She crosses swords with Sandor Clegane, and she wins -- she always does -- and he shakes his head, spits into the mud and laughs.</p><p>Jon tucks her under his arm and says: "You're incredible." He looks at her with pride. "It's thanks to you," she tells him. "You gave me my first sword."</p><p>Mikken crafted Needle for Arya at Jon's bidding. Then Theon Greyjoy had Mikken murdered when he invaded her home.</p><p>--</p><p>She tries to make a new list: There is Sansa. She is alive. There is Jon. He is alive. This is Gendry. He is alive. I am Arya. I am alive.</p><p>Sometimes, when they sit together in the warm hall, exchanging song and food, she nearly feels it.</p><p>But sometimes, it goes like this:</p><p>A girl starts awake in bed and terror bubbles up her chest.</p><p>Her father's head rolls through the mud. Metal clangs, blood sprays. She runs for her life, always and always. The wolves howl their fury.</p><p>Arya gasps for breath, grasps for orientation.</p><p>She is a blade, made for murder. She is violence, covered in gore. She is a monster, madness unleashed. She is no one.</p><p>Arya rolls herself out of her sheets, quick as cat, flees the warmth of Gendry's embrace and runs into the cold of winter. She clings to the balcony, feels the snow under her naked toes. Winterfell lies at her feet.</p><p>"I'm Arya Stark of Winterfell," she says out loud and tries to feel it. "This is my home." Her heart beats fast in her chest. She repeats it. With each repetition, her breath slows. The wood grows solid under her fingers. This <em>is</em> home, it really is.</p><p>To her left stands a shadow, silently huddled in a corner, hardly visible. It froze when she came out running. No threat, so she ignored it in her agitation, but now she turns to apprehend.</p><p>It's Theon Greyjoy. He's looking at her with solicitous eyes and says: "You have to remember your name." Arya's anger flares red and hot. How <em>dare</em> he.</p><p>"Speak to me and I'll rip out your tongue," she tells him.</p><p>He cowers into himself. The doors in her want to slide open again, want to shift into something feral and bloodied and nameless. "Go away!" she warns.</p><p>Her hands cry for murder, but she feels a warm touch at her side and it's Gendry, this time, and she buries her face into his neck instead and cries.</p><p>When she looks up again, Theon is gone.</p><p>--</p><p>The next morning, Arya is intent on settling her Turncloak problem. She's tolerated his duplicity long enough.</p><p>She finds him wandering the ramparts, as he does. She walks straight to him and wordlessly presses a blade against his neck. His hands tremble, they always do, but he looks unsurprised at her violence.</p><p>"I'm not like you," she warns him. "Never again speak to me as if I was like you."</p><p>"No," he agrees.</p><p>"I have every right to kill you."</p><p>"Yes."   </p><p>A drop of blood drips down his neck where she nicked the skin. She <em>could</em> kill him. She'd have reason to. He's still a threat to her family and, worst of all, he's still lying.</p><p>"What happened with you?" he asks, softly.</p><p>How <em>dare</em> he, she thinks, again, but she answers, as simply as she can: "I got trained."</p><p>Theon's look is one of such sorrow that she wants to skewer him right here and now. Somehow all comfort has gone out of reminding him of her power.</p><p>"And your name?" he whispers.</p><p>She puts away her blade.</p><p>"I told you, Turncloak, we're not the same. You got beaten into weakness, but I got beaten into power."</p><p>He's looking at his mutilated fingers and doesn't protest her.</p><p>"You grew very strong," he agrees, finally.</p><p>His refusal to fight rankles her. That he looks at her as if she was as mad as him rankles even more.   </p><p>"Why are you always lying?" she charges.</p><p>He looks up. The scars on his face and his neck look red on his ashen skin. "I don’t lie."</p><p>"You always lie. You think I'm sad but tell me I'm strong. You cower when they insult you as if you deserved it. You want to make amends for betraying my House?"</p><p>"These aren’t lies..."</p><p>Arya nearly wants to spit in disgust, but she knows he would accept it, and that stops her.</p><p>"Do you know why I don't trust you?" she asks, instead.</p><p>"I murdered people you loved," he answers. “I betrayed your family.”  </p><p>She shakes her head.</p><p>"You did that, and I haven’t forgiven, but that's not why. I got trained to know things about people, Theon. I am not fooled. I was just slightly older than you were when they murdered my family and I lost my home. Don't you think I understand what that means? My father took you away and might have killed you. You could never belong and that rankled. You were our captive, you don't owe us loyalty, why do you claim otherwise?"</p><p>If he feels anything at her intrusions, he doesn't show it. He stands pale and still.</p><p>"You were tortured for years, everybody knows, nobody helped, and they spit at you where you walk. You want me to believe you hate only yourself? You don’t want to hurt us? <em>All </em>you wish to do here in Winterfell is <em>make amends</em> to my family?"</p><p>He looks down. "You said it yourself, Arya, I'm not like you."</p><p>"No anger at all. No desire for revenge. Not a drop of rage?"</p><p>He shakes his head.</p><p>She won’t believe it.</p><p>"Lies!" she says. <em>"That</em>'s why I don't trust you, Theon. You lie, maybe even to yourself."</p><p>His breath is small white puffs of steam in the cold air.</p><p>“So you say," he whispers, unwilling to make his case. "And what happened to your name?"</p><p>"That's a secret," she says.</p><p>"Sansa told me you trained on Essos," he prompts.</p><p>"Yes. I had nowhere else to go. But I chose to be Arya Stark, to come home, to help my family, to strengthen our House. I know what I want. I don’t get what you want, being here.”</p><p>Theon takes his time to find his answer.</p><p>"No one tried to help, you're right, but Yara and Sansa did. I don't care about Houses, or lordships, I know what power does. I want to help our sisters, in whatever way I can."</p><p>"A life of service, then? I don't buy it."</p><p>He looks at her. "And you? A life of vengeance?" </p><p>Suddenly, unexpected and unwanted, her heart fills with pain.</p><p>"No," she says. "That's never been all I wanted."</p><p>She looks away.</p><p>"I want us to survive. I want power, not the power of kings, but the power to defend. Did you think I'm mad with bloodlust?"</p><p>That's how some want to look at her. Wild Arya and her blade, ruthless executioner. Dangerous, powerful, but broken.</p><p>He laughs. "Do I get to be the judge of that?"</p><p>Reek the Freak, they still call him. His eyes are near constantly unhinged. No, he doesn't get to be a judge of sanity.</p><p>"Sansa would never forgive me, if I killed you," Arya says, sadly.</p><p>He smiles at her. "Then let me live."</p><p><em>Strange and annoying</em>, Sansa calls her. What does she call him, then.</p><p>--</p><p>Arya throws daggers and plays the game of truth with herself.</p><p><em>I am Arya Stark of Winterfell</em>, she starts. A dagger lodges itself in the target with a satisfying thunk. True enough.</p><p><em>I want to kill Cersei Lannister</em>, she continues. That’s still true.</p><p><em>I want to protect my family</em>. The dagger flies and hits dead centre. <em>And my friends. </em></p><p>Arya remembers the smack of the cane when she gave a wrong answer. She remembers her hands, so swollen and bruised she could barely bend her fingers, but that never spared her the work, nor the game. Pretend for others, when you must, but never at yourself, was the lesson. Know what you are. Hide nothing from yourself and then you will be able to act.</p><p>She walks to collect her weapons and starts again.</p><p>
  <em>Friends and family. That's Sansa. Jon. Bran. Gendry. Sandor Clegane. </em>
</p><p>What of Theon Greyjoy?</p><p>Arya treads carefully. There's no one here, now, to hurt her if she attempts deception. But she'll know anyhow.</p><p><em>He wouldn't hurt my sister</em>, she tries, and throws a dagger. That's true.</p><p><em>I don't want to kill him, </em>she continues. Unfortunately, that's also true.</p><p>Arya considers how often she has toyed with Theon’s death in the last weeks and feels unease in her chest. <em>A girl should not speak in vain to the Red God</em>, she can just so imagine hearing.</p><p><em>He's still a danger</em>. And that's true also.</p><p>He's a danger because he must be angry but he denies it. He murdered once and he could again. He is twisted by violence and lies and false loyalty. She thought she knew him for what he was. Maybe she doesn’t understand him at all, and that’s a danger in itself.</p><p>He's a danger because <em>everything</em> is a danger, because that is how you keep yourself safe, that is how you protect your family: You sense a menace before it reveals itself. You kill a threat before it grows. You're suspicious of everyone and everything.  </p><p>Sansa understands that, now. So much they never could agree on, but that's where they meet eye to eye: Protect your own from danger.</p><p>--</p><p>She finds Theon trembling in a corner, eyes wide and unseeing, fingers dripping red where he scratched himself bloody against the wall.</p><p>She wants to walk past, as others probably did, as they crossed the hall, but she remembers the night before, and his solicitous eyes that enraged her so.</p><p>"Theon," she says.</p><p>He's slow to react. "Theon," she must say again, and then a few times more, before his eyes shift. He looks up without truly seeing her, she can tell, but he recognises something, enough for him to whisper: "Say it again." "Theon," she repeats, obliging.</p><p>"Theon," he agrees with a shudder. <em>You must remember your name. </em></p><p>It's Jon who first told her that she wouldn't be able to kill him even if she wanted to. She had shrugged it off. A girl is without pity and without mercy. She would be able to kill <em>anyone</em>, if need be.</p><p>She still would, but she sees Jon's point.</p><p>When Theon stands up, it's with visible effort, and he gives her a late answer to their last conversation. "No one gets beaten into power," he tells her. </p><p>Arya reflects on this the next time she throws her daggers. She doesn't know if she agrees.</p><p>--</p><p>"You don't need to have everything figured out, you know," Sansa tells her.</p><p>"No, that's your job now, you're the smart one."</p><p>"Says who?"</p><p>"Jon and I agree on this."</p><p>"Does he." Sansa smiles.</p><p>Arya snorts. Predictable. They are leaning against the balustrade, with a view down the yard. Brienne is passing by and Arya smiles at her.</p><p>"What do you <em>think</em> am I trying to figure out?"</p><p>Sansa looks at her. "The best way for us to survive." </p><p>--</p><p>"I got to warn you, the food's disgusting today," says Gendry. "Not that we mind."</p><p>He's heartily digging in all the same.</p><p>Rarely did Arya have so consistent an access to food as during these last weeks and she indeed doesn't mind the taste in the least.</p><p>"It is pretty bad," she admits, laughing. "But it beats rat stew."</p><p>Sansa looks faintly disgusted, but Theon laughs and says: "Rat stew sounds like <em>cooked </em>rat, at least."</p><p>He slurps down a bland, overcooked bit of cabbage with visible enjoyment. Arya finds she doesn't mind Theon's company, this evening.</p><p>--</p><p>They start a new kind of game, soon after.</p><p> </p><p>"What's the worst way to die?" Arya asks.</p><p>Theon raises an eyebrow for her to start.</p><p>"Burned with fire," Arya suggests.</p><p>"Eaten by hounds," Theon raises.</p><p>"Stabbed in the gut by your allies." </p><p>"Starved to death."</p><p>"Crucified."</p><p>"That's mine. Buried alive."</p><p>("He did that?" "He did everything.")</p><p>"Trampled by horses."</p><p>"Flayed."</p><p>Arya nods, slowly, after consideration.</p><p>"Maybe," she agrees.</p><p> </p><p>"What's the most disgusting thing you ever saw?" Arya asks.</p><p>Theon's gaze turns far away, like impressed by the sheer number of disgusting things he knew.</p><p>"You do this one," he says.</p><p>Arya thinks. "Roose Bolton's leeches," she offers.</p><p>Theon stares at her. "You knew Roose Bolton?" he says.</p><p>"At Harrenhal."</p><p>He shakes his head. "Gods..." he says.</p><p>He narrows his eyes and deliberates.</p><p>"It's in the.... top ten most disgusting things," he admits.</p><p> </p><p>"What's the saddest thing you ever knew?" Arya asks.</p><p>Theon sits still for a moment too long then shakes his head. "Let's not do that. Let's do... What's the funniest way to murder Cersei?"</p><p>Arya grins her wolfiest smile. Yes, let's. She has some good ideas for that.</p><p> </p><p>"I don't get it," she overhears Sansa saying to Jon. "But it seems to relax them, somehow."</p><p>--</p><p>When she overhears a rude little limerick about Theon Turncloak -- a reworking of a song about a ghostly maiden to be about Reek's ghost prick -- Arya surprises herself by slamming a dagger into the wood next to the japer's thigh.</p><p>"You continue that and I skewer your cock with my blade. We'll see how <em>you'll</em> fare in comparison."</p><p>The jokers look confused -- mocking the Turncloak is a popular sport and Gods know he deserves it, after all -- but nobody cares to challenge Arya Stark.</p><p> </p><p>Later she finds Theon comfortably huddled near a fire, eating soup.</p><p>"Why do you accept their mistreatment?" she asks.</p><p>"I'm eating," he says.</p><p><em>So? </em>she wants to bite. <em>Do I have to get an appointment? I'm speaking to you now</em>.</p><p>But she slowly realises this actually is his answer to her question. It makes her even angrier.</p><p>"You're not currently being starved or flayed and anything less than that is perfectly fine?"</p><p>Theon scrapes at his bowl, unimpressed. "That too craven an attitude for you?"</p><p>"It's unjust," she says.</p><p>Theon shrugs.</p><p>Arya tempers her anger, she learned how to.</p><p>"Don't you think it matters?" she challenges, voice level. </p><p>He sets down his bowl. He looks tired, older than his age and exhausted. "It really doesn't. I won't shirk my duties, to Yara, to Sansa, to life, whatever those will be. But some things are what they are."</p><p>Arya narrows her mouth.</p><p>"Sansa says you're trying to atone by accepting abuse because you don't believe you deserve better."</p><p>Something flares in Theon's eyes.</p><p>"Sansa says you've faced so much death and brutality so young that you resort to violence to hide your helplessness."</p><p>"What?!" Arya snaps. "How <em>dare</em>--"</p><p>Theon is laughing at her and Arya shuts her mouth. Point taken.</p><p>She considers letting him wallow in his misery, if it's going to be like this.</p><p>But she sees the ruin of his mangled skin and the dark circles under his eyes and she thinks of everything she observed about him so far.</p><p>"<em>Do</em> you believe you deserved better?" she asks.</p><p>He stays silent for a while. "No," he admits.</p><p>She frowns. "You did, though."</p><p>He gives her a nasty little giggle. "That's new, coming from you," he remarks.</p><p>"It's not!" Arya protests. "I said I'd kill you if you cause us harm. And that I don't trust you, which I don't. I never agreed with your torture. Nor with mocking it."</p><p>He stares bewildered.</p><p>"You don't?" he asks, as if it wasn't obvious.</p><p>"No?" she says. "Who could possibly agree with this?"</p><p><em>Isn't</em> it obvious?</p><p>He looks near entirely lost, eyes dazed, face half frozen in a grin.</p><p>"I've never heard that one," he says, softly, with a small shake of his head.  </p><p>Bile is rising up her throat. No one ever told him this?</p><p>Did he really think...</p><p>She'd rather go skewer something with her sword than talk, but now she feels responsible.</p><p>"All right, Theon Greyjoy, then you'll hear it from me. What you suffered was cruel and wrong. It matters how you are treated for it, because you matter, and because it's not just about you. It's about what kind of world we will build."</p><p>Theon stares petrified for a long time. Even with all her skill, Theon's expression is impossible to gauge. After minutes, she starts to think he won't react at all. Finally, he stirs, looks up at her.  </p><p>"That was kind of you to say," he whispers.</p><p>--</p><p><em>Kind. </em>Now that's something Arya hasn't been called, not usually.</p><p>She balances a dagger in her hand and makes to throw it, unnerved and unsettled by it all.  </p><p>She could play it through, could meditate on it, could peel at the truth. Know yourself.</p><p><em>Is Arya Stark kind</em>? she could ask herself. <em>Does she resort to violence to hide her helplessness?</em></p><p>She can just so taste the memory of relentless questioning, her every cover stripped away hit after hit, can just so imaging her joints throbbing and swelling under the assaults.</p><p><em>Whatever</em>, she decides.</p><p>She goes find Brienne, instead, and asks her to spar. They go at it with abandon. Arya exerts herself till she's warm and burning and life roars through her veins and when she rubs the sweat from her brow, it's with a laugh. Arya wipes her sword. Brienne's muscle bulges under her shirt and her short-cropped hair is so pale as to be nearly white.</p><p>A girl is watching them from the porch, with visible fascination, huge Ser Brienne and Arya the Blade, and Arya's heart swells with some happiness. <em>Yes, watch us</em>, she thinks. <em>Know us as possibility</em>.</p><p> </p><p>She goes find Theon to practise the bow. “You still got it?” she challenges him. He smiles at her: “You know I do.”</p><p>They shoot in silence.</p><p>“I am angry,” he tells her, after a while. “Sansa talks of rebuilding the North. She wants to feel safe again. <em>The North remembers</em>, they say. Well, I remember, too.”</p><p>“What are you going to do about it?” she asks.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he says. “Help Sansa. But otherwise, I don’t know.”</p><p>This time she accepts it.</p><p>She doesn’t really know either. For so long, she’s been on the run, an outcast. Now she’s sung as hero, surrounded by family. Still, their survival is so uncertain. She’ll have to use her terrible skill to help in her own way. And then ?</p><p>“Once, Reek was starving, and in a bad state, and a cook took pity. He gave me some potato stew. Ramsay found out, he always did. So he hacked the man’s hands off and made me eat them. When I couldn’t keep it down, he called me ungrateful and punished me. Some of the men who mock me know of it, because they were there.”</p><p>Theon carefully choses his next arrow and Arya stands speechless.</p><p>“Some died under Bolton, others survived,” Theon continues. “The dragon queen says it’s an evil to use power to enslave. She says she wants to break the wheel. What do you make of that?”</p><p>Arya reels for words. “I could get on board with that,” she finds the voice to say. “Depending on how she means it.”</p><p>Theon stands small and unassuming, with his scarred face and missing fingers and haunted eyes, and all his arrows hit the mark. She should never have called him weak.</p><p>“Do you wish you’d been the one to have killed Ramsay Bolton?” she asks him.</p><p>He takes aim to shoot. “I wouldn’t have been able to,” he tells her. “He trained me to make it impossible.”</p><p>“Who knows,” she says, but he shakes his head.</p><p>His arrow lodges itself in the target and Arya considers the meaning of the word <em>trained</em>.</p><p>“Sansa killed him for us,” Theon says, fondly.   </p><p>She did, didn’t she. Soft-spoken Sansa and her neat dress.</p><p><em>Strange and annoying</em>, Arya thinks, and laughs.</p><p>--</p><p>"I'm going to go murder a few people who deserve it," she announces to Sansa and Theon, as she makes for her leave. "I trust you're fine with that.”</p><p>Theon and Sansa stand close as to nearly touch shoulders and Theon looks warm and comfortable. Arya finds she’s pleased with him being comfortable.</p><p>“Won't take me long," she promises.  </p><p>"I did think your list sounds a bit short," says Theon, eyes glimmering.</p><p>He’s still dressed like an ironborn, not in Northern garb embroidered with krakens like back then, but actual ironborn clothing. Sansa looks at him with sure trust. Neither of them questions her methods, or her judgement, and Arya finds herself oddly comforted by that.</p><p>She doesn't ask Theon what he will do. Stay, go, fight, rest. He will figure it out when he figures it out. As will she.</p><p>"Please take care," Sansa says and wraps her arms around her.</p><p>"Come back home. We'll miss you."</p><p>“I will,” Arya promises.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22130806">Proskenion</a> for the idea to simply bypass Bran unnecessarily sacrificing Theon.</p><p>Book inspos: Arya met Roose Bolton and his leeches in Harrenhal. A starving Reek ate raw rat in the Dreadfort dungeons. Arya, also hungry, ate rat in King’s Landing during her flight. I don't recall if Mikken was in the show, but Theon did have him killed. Mycah, Arya’s friend, got trampled to death by horses by the Hound under Cersei’s orders, he was the first friend Arya lost of many.</p><p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>Tell me about it in the comments, I love comments.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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